The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1908. A GOVERNMENT LAND TRANSACTION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 222, 12 June 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1908. A GOVERNMENT LAND TRANSACTION.

■ In the course of, tho oaso : Leiqh v. Stkand, Whicli lately occupied the Supreme Court, foi aevcfal l days, Borne' facts were elicited concerning a Government land transaction of a char,actor so_ 'unusual, or at any rate bo surprising, as .to call for public attention. It appears that a block .of, land at.-Nai Nai,-pur-chased by private.individuals in the year 1903 for £10,000, was in 1905 purchased by the Government for £21,000 for subdivision into sites for workers': homes. The land is situated three miles from tho Hutt railway station, afid i't is poor and swamny soil: land ideally unsuitable for the purpose for which it was bought by the Government. From almost every point of viewj the Government's purchase was. a bad bargain, such a . bad bargain, indeed, that th 6 public will.demand some better explanation of it than r the ■ traditional pronencss of State departments to make mistakes wherever they are possible. The mere location of tho, land, three miles from the nearest railway station, was sufficient to' make it' unsuitable for! the purpose for which'it was acquired, even had the land itself been good, dry soil. But it was not even good, dry soil: 'it was so soiir and swampy that, as a correspondent, " Freedom," pointed out yesterday,. it was considered necessary by the Government to spend a good'deal of money in deepening the Waiwetu stream and, cutting ditchep for •drainage, Finally, tho price paid for the land was over 100 per cent, more than its niarket Value at a date a couple; of years prior to the purchase by the Goveminent.

The Government's practical confession of the amazing blunder made lies in tho fact that the. land, purchased for conversion into a workers' settlement, is now used for grazing purposes) and the Country Has thus had to pay over £20,000 for possession of a piece of- land on which, to quote tho correspondent already referred ■to, " a few cows manage to exist by industrious wancloringfe." The ' public may well wonder what considerations induced the Government of tho day to throw away,over £20,000 of the taxpayers' money on a block of land that was apparently worth only half the money paid for it, and that was in any case useless for the purpose for which it was acquired. It is a thing impossible of contention that what a private speculator Could secure for £10,000 could possibly, in the circumstances of this case,. havo been worth more than double the amount two years later. Has the Ward Government improved iifioti the business' methods of the Seddon Government as dis-. closed in this extraordinary affair 1 That is a question which will seriously agitato the mind of o very one Who realises tho urgent necessity for vigilance oil the part of a Government that possesses almost unlimited power to purchiso liind. The best answer which the present Government can make will be something in the; way of an assurance that it. will avoid the mistakes of the Government that it succeedod. That assurance can take no better shape than an active inquiry into the circumstances; surrounding the Nai Nai purchase, and tho publication during tho coming sossion of all the facts rclat-

ing to as singular a land deal as we can remember; It is not enough to say that the land may increase in value, and so in years to pome justify its acquisition by tho State. It was not as a speculation that it was acquired, and it is not ad a possibly profitable speculation that its purchase can bo defendod. Tho pub; lie, which finds tho money, deserves to ba supplied with the fullest information upon the reasons for the purchase of land so plainly unsuitable for a workers' settlement, and also for the payment of what on the face of things is such an extravagantly high price for it.